Hi,
Here are some more impressions/experiences with LM8.0 Beta2
I installed it on SGI's Zx10 worstations (/proc/pci and /proc/scsi/scsi is
included at the end of this mail)
BUGS:
- I could only see first 2/3rd of the installation screen from the top left
corner. i.e. this 2/3rd filled up the entire screen as if my virtual res was
larger than the res at which it was installing.
- Package selection is totally screwed.. I asked it to install everything and
it hardly installed 1GB of stuff.. I had to install MySQL, Mesa-devel and a
lot of other packages in order to get my code to compile on this machine
- In recommended mode, it runs past the X server configuration.. and when it
rebooted, i found that it didn't configure X properly.. i was in 8bit 600x400
resolution (i think) with the same problem as the installation screen.
- The machine has 1.5GB RAM.. but only 1GB was detected :(
PRAISE:
- EXCELLENT h/w detection.. I could not install RedHat 7.0 on that machine
coz it couldn't detect any SCSI h/w.. LM detected, and installed w/o
problems.. way to go!! Also, abs. everything was detected :)
- URPMI is simply cool! I just loved the way it installed the packages i
needed for compiling my code.. gone are teh days when we used to search for
RPMs ourselves!
SUGGESTIONS:
- PLEASE IMPROVE GUI!!!!!! are the artists at LM listening????? rpmdrake
looks yuck to say the least (sorry!).. Just compare kpackage and rpmdrake..
they are MILES apart in looks.. And if u say looks don't matter.. then go use
debian/slackware/redhat.. We expect cool GUIs from LM.. I have suggested this
b4 and will again suggest it.. USE QT!!!! There is nothing like Qt out
there.. If you keep using Gtk, u're GUIs will always suck.. Again, for those
who don't want to use/keep Qt on u're machines, go use
debian/slackware/red-hat.. For those people I would like to ask : Why are you
using Netscape??? Is the code open? why do u use real-player?? What has Qt
done that everybody is against it? They have an open-source product which is
GPLed.. what more do u want??? remember that enterprise has money and so
they'll buy when they want to sell proprietery product.. there is nothign
wrong in that. If LM were to use Qt, their GUIs will look awesome! An ideal
solution would be to use Qt, but have 2 versions of all GUIs.. one based on
KDE and other Qt-only.. it won't be too difficult.. simply change the main.C
and compile again & don't use any KDE widgets
- Please mention if u are using LILO or GRUB? The boot screen is simply
awesome, but there is no mention that its a OS chooser.. A small note at the
bottom of the screen saying this is LILO or GRUB won't affect!
- By default, aurora didn't start althought i used recommended mode :(
- In the new aurora look, the icons below fly past too fast.. there is no
time to click on them to check the error msg.. how about lining up the error
icons above the non-error ones? Or even better, just show a progress bar here
and show the actual text output on Alt-F2 or something.. Isn't this possible?
Also, please include "Linux Mandrake" in aurora.. make it look professional
- urpmi shld be case insensitive. For eg. i wanted to install mySQL devel
package.. so i obv. said "urpmi mysql" and it showed me 2 packages which i
didn't understand what the were.. after searching for mysql on the web, i
found that its actually MySQL!
- there is no way to install a required RPM when all u know is the file u are
looking for.. eg. I wanted "sqltypes.h".. I had to run kpackage on a m/c that
had that file, find out the rpm and then install it using urpmi
- when urpmi shows the possible packages, or the pacakges needed for
dependency, it shows it in a really bad format.. please format the output
nicely.. it shldn't be more than 5-10 mints work!
- urpmi shld ask b4 installing all the dependency packages... I think it shld
give 5 options.. (y/n/a/f/?).. "a" for "Yes to ALL" , "f" to force the
installation.. "?" shld give information about the package that the user is
about to install
- if urpmi was invoked by "rpm --auto", life would be real easy! One less
cryptic name to remember for CLI! (read below). Thus, instead of saying
"urpmi Mesa" a user will say "rpm --auto Mesa".. think about it!
- I have said this before.. but I am repeating.. give good names to your
configuration programs. Can anybody tell me what sort of order is there in
these names? : DrakConf, mousedrake, XFDrake, draknet etc..
First of all the "drake" comes anywhere.. there is no thought given to
cases.. "drake" is sometimes "drak" (draknet etc.)...
I propose to get rid of that "drake" word.. it may be very obvious to people
at LM, but its strange for others/new_users. Mandrake is now pretty famous
and they don't need to put "drake" into every other name.
Here is a my new proposal for naming:
"setup" - to setup/configure u're system
by default, setup will run DrakConf (yes.. now u can simply simlink setup ->
DrakConf and keep those "drake" names which are obvious to you)
"setup" will take parameters.. "setup mouse" will start mousedrake, "setup X"
will start XFDrake, "setup network" will start draknet and so on...
This is very similar to the excellent "service <service_name>
start/stop/status".. as a heavy user, i find such things really simple.. I
work with RH, SUSE and others too.. and I hate that all distros have their
own names for setting up stuff.. so please think seriously about this issue..
its a simple question of writing a script called "setup" which will look at
the input and run the appropriate command. So in future even if u decide to
change the names of u're executables, it'll be always transparent to the
end-user.
Same goes with the desktop.. why "DrakConf" and that
not-so-professional-looking icon for configuration? Why not simply name it
"Setup" or "System Configuration"?? Internall it'll run DrakConf .. thats
fine.. but why are u forcing user to remember "DrakConf"? Again this is very
easy for u guys to do.. I have a lot of really good people here and when they
ask how to setup something, I am surprised.. coz even though they work on the
machine, they often miss that "DrakConf" icon on the screen.. firstly coz the
icon is not-so-obvious, and secondly, coz the name "DrakConf" is
not-so-obvious. So pleassseee change this!
- Add a call to DrakConf from inside Gnome and KDE control centers.. that way
users have a central place to go to all the time.
Thats it.. hoping to see these trivial but very important modifications
before the next beta..
People who have earlier given excellent reviews for LM 7.2 and who rated it
as the best distro, are now doing the same to SUSE.. coz they have done real
improvements to the GUI (although they are still behind you guys in terms of
h/w detection and they don't have ISOs!!!). Implement the above suggestions
and see u're ratings gove past SUSE 7.1 again!
Remember that the above suggestions are from a person not working at
MandrakeSoft, is a heavy user of linux, deals with a lot of distros and
understands what new users/newbies are looking for!
thanks for reading
sarang
PS : This is the right time for you guys to change names and implement a new
policy.. since u are moving from 7.2 to 8.0.. Also remember that I am not
saying get rid of "DrakConf" name.. it'll still be there.. but in all u're
demos, tutorials, teach the user to use "setup", "setup mouse" etc.. Those
who do remember DrakConf will be able to run it anyway!
********************** SGI Zx10 workstation *************
# cat /proc/pci
PCI devices found:
Bus 0, device 0, function 0:
Host bridge: ServerWorks CNB20HE (rev 34).
Master Capable. Latency=64.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf4000000 [0xf5ffffff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0004000 [0xf0004fff].
Bus 0, device 0, function 1:
PCI bridge: ServerWorks CNB20LE (rev 1).
Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=8.
Bus 0, device 0, function 2:
Host bridge: PCI device 1166:0006 (ServerWorks) (rev 0).
Master Capable. Latency=64.
Bus 0, device 0, function 3:
Host bridge: PCI device 1166:0006 (ServerWorks) (rev 0).
Master Capable. Latency=64.
Bus 0, device 1, function 0:
SCSI storage controller: Symbios Logic Inc. (formerly NCR) 53c1010 Ultra3
SCSI Adapter (rev 1).
IRQ 29.
Master Capable. Latency=72. Min Gnt=17.Max Lat=18.
I/O at 0x1000 [0x10ff].
Non-prefetchable 64 bit memory at 0xf0007000 [0xf00073ff].
Non-prefetchable 64 bit memory at 0xf0000000 [0xf0001fff].
Bus 0, device 1, function 1:
SCSI storage controller: Symbios Logic Inc. (formerly NCR) 53c1010 Ultra3
SCSI Adapter (#2) (rev 1).
IRQ 28.
Master Capable. Latency=72. Min Gnt=17.Max Lat=18.
I/O at 0x1400 [0x14ff].
Non-prefetchable 64 bit memory at 0xf0007400 [0xf00077ff].
Non-prefetchable 64 bit memory at 0xf0002000 [0xf0003fff].
Bus 0, device 2, function 0:
Multimedia audio controller: Ensoniq ES1371 [AudioPCI-97] (rev 8).
IRQ 30.
Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=12.Max Lat=128.
I/O at 0x1800 [0x183f].
Bus 0, device 7, function 0:
Ethernet controller: Intel Corporation 82557 [Ethernet Pro 100] (rev 8).
IRQ 23.
Master Capable. Latency=64. Min Gnt=8.Max Lat=56.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0005000 [0xf0005fff].
I/O at 0x1840 [0x187f].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0100000 [0xf01fffff].
Bus 0, device 15, function 0:
ISA bridge: ServerWorks OSB4 (rev 79).
Bus 0, device 15, function 1:
IDE interface: PCI device 1166:0211 (ServerWorks) (rev 0).
Master Capable. Latency=64.
I/O at 0x1880 [0x188f].
Bus 0, device 15, function 2:
USB Controller: PCI device 1166:0220 (ServerWorks) (rev 4).
IRQ 16.
Master Capable. Latency=64. Max Lat=80.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0006000 [0xf0006fff].
Bus 1, device 0, function 0:
VGA compatible controller: Chips and Technologies F69000 HiQVideo (rev
100).
IRQ 17.
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf1000000 [0xf1ffffff].
Bus 1, device 0, function 1:
Display controller: PCI device 1091:07a0 (Intergraph Corporation) (rev 0).
IRQ 17.
Master Capable. Latency=64.
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf4000000 [0xf1ffffff].
Non-prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0200000 [0xf020ffff].
Prefetchable 32 bit memory at 0xf0800000 [0xf0ffffff].
# cat /proc/scsi/scsi
Attached devices:
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 00 Lun: 00
Vendor: QUANTUM Model: ATLAS10K2-TY184L Rev: DA40
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
Host: scsi1 Channel: 00 Id: 01 Lun: 00
Vendor: QUANTUM Model: ATLAS10K2-TY184L Rev: DA40
Type: Direct-Access ANSI SCSI revision: 03
--
=========================================================
Sarang Lakare
Department of Computer Science |Linux, MS-DOS and Windows ...
PhD Student |(also known as the Good,
SUNY Stony Brook, NY, USA | the Bad and the Ugly..)
http://www.cs.sunysb.edu/~lsarang |http://www.linux.com
mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] |mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]
